Book read and reviewed (or soon-to-be reviewed) in 2023:
Son of Elsewhere – Elamin Abdelmahmoud
You’re Never Weird on the Internet – Felicia Day
Eliza and Her Monsters – Francesca Zappia
Pieces of Her – Karin Slaughter
This Time Tomorrow – Emma Straub
In Five Years – Rebecca Serle
Anxious People – Fredrik Backman – not reviewed (see below)
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care (Bright Falls #1) – Ashley Herring Blake
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life – Samantha Irby
London’s Number One Dog-Walking Agency – Kate MacDougall
The Diary of a Bookseller (Diary of a Bookseller #1) – Shaun Bythell
Will You Read This Please? – Joanna Cannon
That Was When People Started to Worry – Nancy Tucker
Ten Steps to Nanette – Hannah Gadsby
Community Board – Tara Conklin
People I Want to Punch in the Throat – Jen Mann
A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention – Rebecca Shiller
Unraveling – Peggy Orenstein
Better Late Than Never – Emma Mahony
Garden Variety – Christy Wilhelmi
Amazing Grace Adams – Fran Littlewood
Funny Farm – Laurie Zaleski
Young Mungo – Douglas Stuart
The Littlest Library – Poppy Alexander
Trust – Hernan Diaz – not reviewed (see below)
Trespasses – Louise Kennedy – not reviewed (see below)
How High We Go in the Dark – Sequoia Nagamatsu
Foster – Claire Keegan
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating – Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
Screaming on the Inside – Jessica Grose
Life in the Garden – Penelope Lively
A Life in Stitches – Rachael Herron
How to Keep House While Drowning – K.C. Davis
The Friday Night Knitting Club (Friday Night Knitting Club #1) – Kate Jacobs
The Rural Diaries – Hilarie Burton Morgan
Honey Farm Dreaming – Anna Featherstone
The Yarn Whisperer – Clara Parkes
Knitting Yarns – Ann Hood, ed.
Farm City – Novella Carpenter
Enchantment – Katherine May
Quietly Hostile – Samantha Irby
Dirty Laundry – Roxanne Emery and Richard Pink
My Mess Is a Bit of a Life – Georgia Pritchett (read twice)
Coasting – Elise Downing
Knitting Pearls – Ann Hood, ed.
Books read and not reviewed:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter #2) – J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #3) – J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter #4) – J.K. Rowling
– These three were re-reads as we were reading the illustrated versions to our kid.
The Witches’ Tree (Agatha Raisin #28) – M.C. Beaton
The Dead Ringer (Agatha Raisin #29) – M.C. Beaton
Beating About the Bush (Agatha Raisin #30) – M.C. Beaton
Hot to Trot (Agatha Raisin #31) – M.C. Beaton
Down the Hatch (Agatha Raisin #32) – M.C. Beaton
– I very much enjoy the Agatha Raisin series – they’re light, fun, quick, entertaining and not at all anything to do with reality. But one is much the same as the next, and I don’t have enough to say about any of them to review them.
Daisy Jones and the Six – Taylor Jenkins Reid (re-read)
– I decided to listen to the audio version of this when I watched the show (not as good as I hoped and though I may be the only one who feels this, I hated the music)
The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club #2) – Richard Osman
The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club #3) – Richard Osman
– I adore this series. I should have reviewed them immediately as soon as I finished each one, but I didn’t. Now it feels too late unless I re-read them as I can’t really separate a lot of the continuing plot and character development between the three. But the lack of review is not a negative sign – these are brilliant, smart, funny, have excellent characters (even better that they are seniors and still full of life and abilities and intelligence) and are a joy to read. 8/10 or around that to each.
Midlife Bites – Jen Mann
– I had just read her other book, and the two did sort of blend in my memory. But it has the same irreverence, the same tone, and similar insights into life as a middle-aged woman.
Group – Christie Tate
– I have only a few fuzzy memories of this book. I didn’t dislike it, but it also didn’t really stand out to me for long. I don’t think I want to re-read it to find my thoughts on it.
Anxious People – Fredrik Backman
– I enjoyed this book but left the review a bit too long and couldn’t make it come out right. I love that Backman’s characters always seem to have some kind of mental health or neurodiversity woven in – in this case anxiety. It’s an interesting story as it’s kind of got some fast-paced action elements, but also lots of character development as well. Definitely worth a read if it appeals to you. 8 stars.
Trust – Hernan Diaz
– I read this for the BookTube Prize, and it’s not one I likely would have read otherwise. It’s well written and has an intriguing plot structure. I can see why it was included in the prize, but it wasn’t my favourite to read since I had a hard time really connecting to any of the characters. I’d say it’s worth reading if you’re interested in it! 7 stars.
Trespasses – Louise Kennedy
– Another BookTube Prize read that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise. It explores the interactions of one family, I believe during the troubles in Ireland. It delves into alcoholism, grief, loss, relationships, the suffocating feeling of having few options in life and the political climate that surrounded the events. It wasn’t a cheerful read, but it was well written and I’m glad I gave it a try. 7 stars.
Foster – Claire Keegan
– Yet another BookTube Prize selection! But this one I really would recommend. It’s a tiny book, but its slender stature belies the depth and breadth of the story within. It’s a tender story about a young girl who is left by her father at the farm of some family friends because her pregnant mother is in need of a break. We don’t know how long she’ll stay there, nor anything about the couple who have taken her in. But as the story develops we learn about the couple’s history, we see the three of them carefully develop ties, and we see how the community around them reacts to the odd arrangement. The ending is quite bittersweet, and it had a lot of emotional impact. 8.5 stars.
Screaming on the Inside – Jessica Grose
– I have almost no recollection of this book, other than when I was reading it, I did like it. It’s one I need to re-read and actually pay proper attention to!
Life in the Garden – Penelope Lively
– I really enjoyed this book. It’s a slow, introspective journey through Lively’s garden, her previous gardening experience, and the research tangents that her gardening sends her on. It is a quiet book, without a real plot, but it’s a lovely meditation on the joys of growing things that I thoroughly enjoyed. 8 stars.
A Life in Stitches – Rachael Herron
– Another book I really loved and just didn’t review soon enough. I think this is my favourite of the knitting-based books I tried, as it’s memoir with yarn crafts (excuse the pun) woven throughout. I loved seeing how her relationship with yarn and yarn crafts changed over the course of her life, as well as how she changed and grew. It was a really lovely book to listen to while engaging in my own crocheting and knitting, and I can definitely see myself returning to it. A must if you’re a yarn lover! 8.5 stars.
How to Keep House While Drowning – K.C. Davis
– No recollection. It was a quick read that I listened to one day while doing chores, and it kept me entertained, but didn’t really seem to sink in. I much have been extra distracted. I remember liking it and even thinking that some of it would be useful… but then I promptly forgot everything. I’ll have to try reading it again!
Honey Farm Dreaming – Anna Featherstone
– This one is a memoir about a family who take on a large area of land in rural Australia and try to farm it. But it’s backbreaking work, they don’t have the money for it, and they aren’t sure how to make it work. So they come up with some ideas. They invite WWOOFers to help them (an organization that helps people who want to travel find places they can volunteer their work in exchange for a place to stay and board). They open up some of their rooms for rental. And they start a small garden area specifically designed to serve as a food source for as many species of native bees as possible. This idea develops along the way and leads to lots of unforeseen results. There are a lot of ups and downs throughout the book, and some of it was a bit blunt and not super satisfying to read – not dark exactly, but just not necessarily tied together neatly at the end, some of the stories didn’t feel super necessary, and I can’t say that I enjoyed the entirety of the reading experience. Not quite what I was looking for, I guess, but not a bad book. 6.5 stars.
The Yarn Whisperer – Clara Parkes
– Another book I read during my yarn craze… and that’s about all I remember, unfortunately! I think it was good??
Farm City – Novella Carpenter
– I could have sworn I wrote a review of this one, but now it doesn’t seem to exist! This was a unique premise, in that it’s about a couple who move to a cheap home in Oakland and gain permission to use the vacant lot around their home to turn into a kind of homestead. They begin with growing food, move on to chickens (I think, or maybe ducks), then add an apiary and eventually a very large pig. It’s not something I had ever even imagined, let alone thought might be possible! It’s an interesting mix of the struggles of managing food cultivation and navigating an urban environment with its sparse natural resources (they have to get creative when trying to find food for the pig!) and denser population. It wasn’t a favourite book because it didn’t really have me that invested, but at the same time I loved that I read it because I’d never heard a story like it! 6.5 stars.
Enchantment – Katherine May
– I have really enjoyed every book I’ve read that had Katherine May involved, including this one. Except… I can’t really remember all of it. Same old problem – read it, enjoyed it, didn’t write about it soon enough and it began to fuzz in my brain. I’ve tried to re-read it at least three time so far and gotten a bit of the way in, but then gotten distracted. Then when I try again I have to start back at the beginning, but then I get bored because I remember that part! I’m planning to get around to reading it again at some point and give it a proper review, but for now I’ll say it’s a good one if you’re looking for something reflective and calm, something that explores internal landscapes along with external, and I believe that touches on neurodivergence, chronic illness and motherhood as well. 8 stars.
Quietly Hostile – Samantha Irby
– This was the second book I read by Samantha Irby, and it was very similar to the first (We Are Never Meeting In Real Life). I read them in pretty quick succession, and I didn’t really feel like writing another review when I knew it would be quite similar to the first. If you like her earlier work, you’ll like this one. I enjoyed that it does take place partially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as I always enjoy reading about other people’s experiences during that time. Some of it is a bit TMI, but if you know Irby, it won’t be anything you’re not used to. 7 stars.
Dirty Laundry – Roxanne Emery and Richard Pink
– This is the book written by the couple who started ADHD Love. It’s basically what you see in their videos – anecdotes about Roxane’s ADHD, and then some sharing about their histories, early relationship, her diagnosis, how that has affected them, lessons they’ve learned and just making ADHD people feel less alone (along with helping their neurotypical family members understand a little better what’s going on for them). I don’t agree with or love every single thing they put out, but I love their passion and willingness to share the hard stuff, and I applaud them for what they’ve created. More often than not, it’s useful and compassionate. 8 stars.